If you missed Slaine’s Boston Project show at the Middle East two weeks ago, then you missed some dope shit my friend. The Hub’s top gunners were in tow, and cats including Wispers, M-Dot, Jaysaun, and Dre Robinson smashed for a good five hours straight – without a single shithead fan or jealous MC stepping out of line. Here go new cuts from Chilla Jones and V. Knuckles (of N.B.S.) – both cats who Slaine has been helping develop and smashing tracks with. Rumor is there’s some sort of collaborative Boston Project LP in the works. Will confirm as soon as we know for sure…

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Dubb Sicks makes no secret of his white-trash roots. Besides dumpster diving on the cover of his mostly astounding latest effort, the increasingly notorious Austin-based misogynist spews the sort of populist pollution you’d expect from an Odessa native whose people toil on the broke side of the oil industry.

That said, Lifestyles is by no means a Southern rap album. Dubb might rhyme about hick phenomena like crystal meth, but his heart is in the New York underground. On jams with East Coast legends like Pace Won (“Just To Make Y’All Feel It”) and C-Rayz Walz (“Madd Deep”), it’s clear why Dubb is one of the few Texas MCs who gets tour love above the Mason-Dixon: he’s a binge-drinking, brass-knuckle-packing vagrant with a slick tongue, and those are universal features for a set that represents “broke hustlers with no bucks” and resents “pussy hipsters and black dudes with Mohawks.”

If Eminem symbolized post-industrial Detroit and all of its Caucasian frustration, then, to judge by cuts like “The Anthem” and “It’s Over. The End,” Dubb Sicks is equipped to embody all the rage of Gulf hooligans in the post-spill era.

What are you doing Saturday night? You SHOULD be coming to FRESH PRODUCE to see DJ AYRES! 1/3rd of the legendary NYC party THE RUB, Ayres will be joining the JTTS crew for a night of djing, debauchery and drinking over at Good Life, located at 28 Kingston Street in Downtown Boston. As always no cover, no dress code, no bullshit, but get there early to avoid the line.

Serato and Stones Throw have teamed with the J Dilla Estate for the official J Dilla Serato release, Donut Shop. This is 2 discs with six J Dilla tracks, 2 sides with Serato Control Tone (for use with Serato Scratch Live DJ software), and 2 donut slipmats in a package designed by Studio No.1. This will be released May 10th (the day after Mother’s day–what’s up Ma Dukes?).

The J Dilla tracks consist of three previously unreleased instrumentals selected by J.Rocc from the Dilla archives – “Safety Dance”, “Sycamore”, “Bars & Twists” – and three unreleased instrumental versions of Dilla’s production for Mos Def, Q-Tip and Busta Rhymes, each remastered by Elysian Masters who mixed and mastered J Dilla’s Donuts, The Shining and Ruff Draft albums.

Serato Scratch Live is the leading vinyl emulation software, used worldwide by professional and bedroom DJs alike. This is an officially licensed release of Pay Jay Productions, aka the J Dilla Estate, with Stones Throw and Serato.

” Over here at the 7L & Esoteric company store we swear by authenticity and being up front with our patrons. We’ve given you a lot of music over the past 14-15 years…some give us credit for starting a few trends here and there, both positive and negative. But 1212 is not about that. 1212 is about being honest with yourself and accepting your shortcomings. 1212 is about loosening your grip and extending a hand. 1212 is about finding yourself and maybe finding that special someone else along your journey. There won’t be many dry-eye moments while listening to 1212. If you define “cool” as feeling vulnerable and perhaps crestfallen, 1212 will make you feel like the Fonz. 1212 is about confronting your demons. It is also about eating your demons, puking them up and then throwing them in a fiery pit of death and dying. 1212 is about snatching your boss by the neck and collapsing his windpipe. It is also about taking the closest weapon and beating your opponent to a bloody pulp. 1212 sums up everything we want out of a rap album: hell, aggression, and truth. Sartre’s hell is other people, our hell is other rap guys. We brought some along for 1212: Inspectah Deck, Sadat X, Ill Bill, Evidence, Alchemist, Celph Titled, Vinnie Paz, Reef the Lost Cauze, Statik Selektah, and even good ol’ 7L. That’s right yall, 7L is back for the first 7LES album in 4 years… and he’s making sure Eso isn’t rapping about his dog or his baby (LOL!). You guys wanna hype up your “darkest album yet?” You wanna start a buzz for your ”bringin’ it back to the essence” album? Well, so do we! Get ready for 1212. We, much like you, have come to save the game and crush the bullshit on the radio. 7L & Esoteric – 1212… coming this fall on Fly Casual Creative! Distributed by Traffic Entertainment Group. “

On the morning that the Celtics and the Lakers readied for Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals, framing one of the most storied and intense rivalries in pro sports, the police departments of Boston and Los Angeles geared up for the worst. It’s a grim modern reality: win or lose, cities with exceptional teams have come to expect the potential for arson, fan violence, and rampant mayhem.

So what phenomenon causes fans in one city to pursue self-destruction in triumph, while the other goes, with relative civility, into the dark night of defeat? And, given a city that has won — and lost — more big games per capita than perhaps any other in America, why haven’t there been more sports riots in Boston?

For all their traditionalist gusto, Mobb Deep’s legacy is also tied to their captain’s role in propelling rapid-fire mixtape culture forward. By leaking a torrent of posse cuts and singles through publicity predators like DJ Clue, they helped catalyze a major shift in the rap marketplace. By the late ’90s, it was no longer enough to be the first cat queued to cop the latest 12-inch. Instead, we pilgrimaged to spots like Harlem Music Hut to hear joints before they even surfaced on college airwaves. Sorry if you thought that Lil Wayne pioneered contemporary buzz with his download-a-day diarrhea — the Mobb were dropping bombs by the bundle while Birdman was still changing that dude’s diapers.